Ricoeur draws on Dilthey and MacIntyre to examine the relationship between narrative and life in the fullest sense55. MacIntyre develops his view of narrative identity from the perspective of ethics. He focuses on the process of emplotment as a means by which people make sense of their lives and so shape their understanding of ☜living well☝. We will see how Ricoeur develops this idea when we look at his ethics in further detail.56
Briefly, we need to recall that Ricoeur☂s original idea of threefold mimLsis was originally applied to the interpretation of texts, and was then applied to the interpretation of lives. Application, appropriation, or attestation is the culmination of both the threefold hermeneutic arc and the threefold narrative arc, because authentic attestation is paradigmatic to the interpretation of texts, ☜We are not allowed to exclude the final act of personal commitment from the whole of objective and explanatory procedures which mediate it.☝57
Mark Wallace notes the different terminologies used by commentators in describing the threefold arc; Klemm uses ☜first naiveté☝, ☜critique☝ and ☜second naiveté☝58, while Mudge uses ☜testimony in the making☝, ☜critical moment☝ and ☜post critical moment☝59
Wall applies a threefold movement from Time and Narrative Vol 3, moving from ☜traditionality☝ which draws on Gadamer☂s ☜history of effects☝ to suggest the dimension of historical consciousness which informs our sense of who we are; ☜traditions☝ such as the genres, forms and structures which both permit innovation and suggest the possibilities and shapes it might take, and finally ☜tradition per se☝ which is the ☜claim to truth☝ in the reader☂s life. Tradition takes on a meaning similar to that David Tracy applies to the interpretation of classic literature, and which Ricoeur also applied to reading, as analogous to playing a piece of music.
55
MacIntyre, After Virtue, pp. 204-225.Dilthey referred to the phenomenon of mutability within the cohesion of one lifetime as ☜Zusammenhang des Lebens☝.
56
Ricoeur, Oneself as Another, p. 157ff. 57
Ricoeur, Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences, p. 221. 58 Klemm, The Hermeneutical Theory of Paul Ricoeur, p. 69. 59
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The overlaying of one over the other is not an exact science, but a process of enrichment, which depends on understanding Ricoeur☂s hermeneutics. Dan Stiver seems to show a flawed understanding, when he argues that the two cannot be overlaid: firstly he is confused as to how the critical stage of hermeneutic arc can lead to the ☜post-critical construction of the world in front of the text☝. 60 I would argue that he is using the wrong metaphor here since Ricoeur never speaks of the world in front of the text as a synthesis, or a creation of the reader; rather it is a poetic creation, both shaped by and revealed to the reader. Secondly, Stiver attempts to show that there must be an additional stage of ☜post-critical☝ understanding before refiguration can take place.61 Stiver☂s confusion arises because he does not pay sufficient attention to Ricoeur☂s attempt to mediate between explanation and understanding in the critical stage of interpretation or the configuration stage of mimLsis.62 I would argue that the process of interpretation oscillates between shaping and testing the narrative until a fragile equilibrium is found. Refiguration does not take place when the revised narrative is formed, but as it is lived out. Stiver☂s account suggests a stage in which we could be said to ☜understand☝ a text before making a choice about living in the world it projects, but Ricoeur does not offer us such a choice ♠ rather he assumes that a text makes an existential claim on us, which we can only accept or reject. We might question whether this is an adequate description the responses available to us, but on balance, I think that Ricoeur applies his own categories clearly, so long as we recognise that the hermeneutic of suspicion, the critical phase, may include this notion of testing our understanding.
Ricoeur tells us, ☜narrative identity is the poetic resolution of the hermeneutical circle.☝63 It is the point at which hermeneutics breaks out of the circle into life. And he goes further: the hermeneutic circle is the self☂s ever evolving and dynamic interpretation of its own meaning
60
Stiver, Theology after Ricoeur, p. 66. My emphasis. 61
Stiver, Theology after Ricoeur, p. 75.
62 David Tracy notes Ricoeur☂s use of the single term ☜develop☝ explanation, in contrast to the ☜enveloping☝ of understanding, and suggests that we need to appreciate that ☜develop☝ should probably include ☜challenge, correct, refine, complicate and confront☝ in its ambit. David Tracy, The Analogical Imagination: Christian Theology and the Culture of Pluralism (New York: Crossroad, 1981), p. 143 note 159.
63
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and purpose in the world. It is resolved in life itself, in the application of meaning to attestation ♠ it is the means by which the self can find its own fragile self-esteem.
Notwithstanding the obvious fact that we cannot recount the experience of our own birth, nor our own death, and that our stories are intertwined with numerous others whose details we are unaware of, Ricoeur concludes that we are able to speak of the ☜narrative unity of a life☝.64 Such narrative coherence has two aspects; the connection which humans make between the temporally separate incidents and experiences of life and the meaning which they make from those connections.
Meaning making is a function of ipse, the self who both lives and interprets life, acting as both author and reader. 65 In Time and Narrative Ricoeur saw the identification of ipse with narrative identity as an exact equivalence, but by the time of writing Oneself as Another he associated narrative identity with the interplay between ipse and idem. In doing so, he recognised the problem of constancy and faithfulness which has an impact on responsibility and trustworthiness. Consistency is a characteristic of idem which acts as one pole of a dialectic, the other pole of which is represented by character, the human possibility for development and change. In the later work, Ricoeur describes narrative identity acting as the mediator between these two poles, oscillating between two limits: ☜a lower limit, where permanence in time expresses the confusion of idem and ipse; and an upper limit, where ipse poses the question of its identity without the aid and support of idem.☝66 We will see in a later chapter that this interplay has implications for Ricoeur☂s ethics, where he employs the categories of keeping ones word and character to exemplify the two dimensions of permanence and change.67 Character is expressed in action, while conviction (belief, self- belief, or self-understanding) will be attested in the whole of life. Attestation contributes to the evidence of the difference between ipse and idem, since only I can say ☜I promise☝, ☜I remember☝, ☜I can☝ and these statements cannot be verified in any scientific way, but only be
64
And in this, he reaches very much the same conclusions as Alisdair MacIntyre, for many of the same reasons. See MacIntyre, After Virtue.
65
Ricoeur, Time and Narrative Volume 3, p. 246. 66 Ricoeur, Oneself as Another, p. 124.
67
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attested. Keeping ones word is an attribute of idem, in that it expresses the possibility of constancy, which guarantees that we can keep promises, live up to our intentions and take responsibility for our actions.
The self must be able to change in order that we can become more virtuous; changing stance when we find it inadequate to our circumstances and learning from our mistakes. While character describes those traits and habits by which a person is recognised and identified, and by which a person recognises and identifies him or herself 68, it is in emplotment - in the relationship between action and character - that the identity of the protagonist is constructed, either by an author, or by a person acting as the author of their own identity. Stability in character exists along a continuum: in genres such as myth and fairy tale character tends to be very stable, while in the great nineteenth century novels of George Eliot or Dostoyevsky, characters undergo considerable transformations while we continue to be convinced by the continuity of their identities.69
Emplotment establishes the relationship between character and plot, but it has a third dimension which is that of causality. Actions happen because characters have intentions and will but they are not without consequences, Ricoeur goes beyond the basic structuralist assumptions of Propp and Greimas to remind us that in plots we are dealing with humans acting and suffering. 70 As soon as there is action, there are ethical consequences, as actions always involve an Other, whether as victim or oppressor, co-conspirator or fellow sufferer.
Having established the relationship between narrative identity and ethics as a consequence of emplotment, we can see the relationship of emplotment to ethical judgement. It is easy to judge that Oedipus was wrong to sleep with his mother, or that we should not have driven the car over next door neighbour☂s cat. What we still have not established is how our absorption of these narratives might affect our future behaviour.
68
Ricoeur, Oneself as Another, p. 121. 69
Ricoeur, Oneself as Another, p. 148.
70 Propp, Morphology of the Folktale. Greimas, On Meaning. Ricoeur, Oneself as Another, p. 145.
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We might wonder whether narrative can only be constructed from past events. But, Ricoeur tries to suggest that there is a teleological dimension to narrative identity, that in narrating life we are able not only to look back, but also to look forward, to ☜recount care☝.71
He explores this further, following Von Wright, in the concept of teleological explication, whereby in understanding the intention we understand the cause.72 Such an explanation demonstrates cause and effect in a way which articulates emplotment, but employs a non-scientific understanding of cause and effect, by relying on a process of interpretation rather than proof. Thus, I might explain an action in the past, but I cannot prove that it will achieve my goal in the future.
A further attempt to relate the interpretation of the past to the shaping of the future can be found in Ricoeur☂s appropriation of Freud. He describes psychology as an ☜archaeology of the self☝ which he places in a dialectic relationship with a ☜teleology of the self.☝ His reasoning suggests that the symbols encountered in psychoanalysis not only assist in interpreting past actions, but presuppose the movement of a subject ☜drawn forward☝ by a succession of figures offering new meanings and future possibilities.73
Our capacity to respond to future possibilities, to instigate and create new ways of being, is all included in Ricoeur☂s use of the term poetics. While Aristotle☂s Poetics concerns the imitation of life in art, for Ricoeur the term implies a broader understanding: it is inextricably linked with the capacity of humans to behave creatively and to instigate action.
The development from partial action to a ☜life plan☝ also has its origins in the virtue ethics of Aristotle. As MacIntyre has shown, the Aristotelian virtues are established within the social context of particular practices, such that there is a consensus regarding the virtues of a ☜good☝ doctor, soldier or architect. Just as individual or partial goods (clarity of thought, compassion)
71
Ricoeur, Oneself as Another, p. 163. 72
Paul Ricoeur, Time and Narrative, Vol 1. translated by Kathleen McLaughlin and David Pellauer, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), p. 138.
73 Paul Ricoeur, The Conflict of Interpretations, second edition (first edition, 1974), (London and New York: Continuum, 2000), p. 170.
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are integrated to create the notion of a virtue internal to the practice, so MacIntyre suggests that partial goods can be integrated into the virtue necessary to a ☜good life☝.74 Just as actions are integrated into projects (professional life, family life, community life) Ricoeur suggests that projects are integrated into a ☜whole life☝. In this case ☜life☝ designates bios, the person as a whole, whose life plan is the task or ergon, which moves towards to goal of a ☜good life.☝75
Realising a life plan is a process of resolving the tension between the voluntary and the involuntary, as we saw in Freedom and Nature, reflected in the tension between the narratives of the self☂s historically received past and its projected desired future. As John Wall has put it, ☜narrative unity is a task of realizing life plans in relation to one☂s actual and messy
historicity.☝76 Our self esteem may well depend on our narrative competence.77 This leads us to question whether there are limits to the narrative identity which, for Ricoeur, is arguably the description of what it means to be human.
74
MacIntyre, After Virtue. 75
Ricoeur, Oneself as Another, p. 178. 76
Wall, Moral Creativity, p. 79.
77 Peter Kemp T. Peter Kemp and David M. Rasmussen, The Narrative Path : The Later Works
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